Ash and Dust
by acaelousqueadcentrum
Summary: Prompts, head canons, and short fics for Clarke & Lexa
1. Born to Die

The wound is fatal, Lexa knows.

She will not see another sunrise.

She may not even see another sunfall.

She knows this.

They all do, her warriors who kneel around her with bowed heads.

They will sit by her side until it is over. But they will not accompany her on her journey.

They cannot.

It is for her alone.

The pain is almost dull now.

If Clarke were here she'd explain it. Why the sharp pangs have given way to this fog, this gentle throbbing.

If Clarke were here, Lexa thinks with a small smile, she'd be fussing.

It's for the best that the Sky Princess did not accompany them on this trip. She wouldn't understand.

She'd be fighting, she'd be desperate, she probably wouldn't shut up with her orders and her commands and her scolding as her gentle hands tried to put Lexa back together.

It's for the best because Clarke doesn't understand that there comes a time to stop fighting. A time to accept the darkness, the stillness.

Clarke is made of light, of motion.

She would never be able to watch as Lexa lay and wait for her final night, her eternal sleep.

She would never be able to listen and hear the whisper of Lexa's soul as it left her body, as it sought out it's next home.

Still, Lexa thinks as shadows cross her vision, she would have liked to hear that voice one more time. Even if it was chiding, even if it was angry.

Even if it was full with tears.

And she would have liked to see the face of the Girl Who Fell from the Sky once more. That smile, those knowing, haunting eyes. And feel the warmth of Clarke's touch upon her skin.

Still, Lexa thinks, the murmuring of her warriors's prayers quieter and quieter, she would have liked to have Clarke here, would have liked Clarke's presence at her side as she crossed into the dark.

Still, Lexa thinks, Clarke should be here.

Somehow she draws in another breath against the suffocating fog that envelopes her, and parts her lips to whisper hoarsely, "Tell Clarke I was wrong."

She'll understand, Lexa knows.

She will.


	2. Making Angels Out of Grief

It's not the dead who haunt her dreams, but the living. The eyes that stare at her with an almost holy reverence. The tongues that call her hero, the hands that reach out to touch her as she passes, just to tell their families later that night, their friends, "I touched the hero of Mount Weather today."

If they knew, she thinks, rushing through the village, the market, the camps, if only they knew.

Night after night, her screams pierce the darkness, set the birds flying from the trees above the home she's made in the woods, far enough away that she doesn't disturb the village with her dreams.

Now she only wakes the woman who shares her bed. The woman who shares in the blood on her hands, the list of names in her memory.

Lexa, who spends her days leading her people, and her nights at Clarke's side, soothing away the wrinkles on her brow, the rasp in her voice. It's Lexa who gathers up Clarke's heavy limbs and pulls her in close, who keeps all of her lover's broken pieces together, who keeps her whole.

More than once she's received a fist to the jaw as the blonde struggles against her in her sleep, as Clarke shouts and screams and lashes out. But Lexa understands.

She understands.

She understands everything.

The need to hide away, the need to be apart from their people, the need to distance themselves from the hero worship and the love. And not because it's undeserved, not at all. They were heroic. They saved their peoples. They defeated the enemy. And it's right for the people to celebrate them, to honor them. But Lexa knows too the price at which this victory, this peace was bought. She knows the sacrifices that were made, the compromises, the choices. She knows exactly what being a hero means, and understands how unheroic it feels.

She knows, too, how desperate Clarke is to forget, for just a minute, a moment. She knows the blonde loves her fiercely, but she knows too that sometimes when Clarke kisses her it's not to love. It's to forget. How sometimes when the shorter woman tears at their clothes and bites at her lip, it's not desire but savagery, desperation, absolution that drives her.

They've made their peace with loving each other.

But neither is sure they'll ever make peace with deserving each other, being worthy of each other, of kindness and gentleness and love.

Lexa understands because she carries her own demons. Her own darknesses.

Lexa doesn't have the dreams, not the way Clarke does.

The blonde asked her about it once, about how the faces of the ones they lost and the ones they killed don't chase her in her dreams. How she escapes the weight of knowing they aren't the heroes everyone proclaims them to be.

_How_, Clarke asked as she shivered and trembled in the darkness of their little home, _are you not drowning in the blood that weighs us down?_

Lexa never answered her, just kissed the sweaty blonde hair and tightened the hold she had on the Sky Princess, her love who fell from the stars, waiting for Clarke to fall back asleep.

She can't tell her, Lexa knows, can't tell Clarke of the price she pays, the currency in which she pays her dues, the balance of her sins.

It's not in night terrors, no. Not in dreams or nightmares or the feeling of being torn apart.

It's not in faces that haunt her or in guilt that weighs her down, that colors her words and her sight and every nerve in her body.

No, the price Lexa pays is something altogether more dear.

Every night the past tears her lover apart.

And Lexa?

She has to watch.


	3. Depth Over Distance

Clarke followed the Grounder commander into the woods, the early light of morning barely breaking through the thick ceiling of leaves and branches. She had no idea where they were going, nor why.

All she knew was that Lexa had said "Come."

And, without question, she'd followed.

* * *

They walked for a long time, and by the time they came to the small clearing, it was mid-morning and the sun bright and warm on their faces.

"What is this place," Clarke asked, watching as steam rose from a small pool of water.

It was beautiful. The sun shining, the clear blue sky above. Everywhere greens and browns and little bits of color that hadn't yet succumbed to the coming winter.

It was everything that the Mountain Men had taken from them, everything their enemies had destroyed with the push of a button, a missile as their messenger.

It was the promise of life, when all they'd left behind were memories of death.

Lexa looked at her, saying nothing, and Clarke felt tired, exposed. The Commander's eyes seemed to cut right through her, right into that wide ache, that empty chasm inside of her. The one filled with all the knowledge that she could have saved their dead, the people of Tondc, but had not. The knowledge that she'd let them die so that others, including herself, might live.

"We don't believe in gods," Lexa said, eyes not leaving Clarke's, as she started to pull off her armor, her layers of leathers and clothing, "not in the ways of old. But this," she extended her hand to the steaming pool in front of them, "this we believe in. The earth, the land and the dirt. That we come from it and that we return to it."

Lexa stood before her now, naked and strong and proud. Her body was marked, scars and tattoos winding around her muscled limbs, the curves her armor hid from sight.

She was beautiful, Clarke realized, maybe truly for the first time. She was beautiful, and there was something in the blonde that desired to look, to drink in the sight of this vibrant, mysterious, amazing woman standing bare before her.

"That," Lexa continued, not unaware of Clarke's gaze but unbothered by it, "when we are broken, in body or in spirit, it can make us whole again."

The Commander brought a callused hand up to the blonde's face, so gentle it brought tears to Clarke's eyes.

"You are weary, Clarke of the Sky People. Your spirit aches and your heart is heavy. The survival of our peoples demands sacrifices that we do not think we are strong enough to give. And maybe we are not, not alone," Lexa said, her eyes thoughtful and sad, "but together? Together, Clarke, we are strong. We are whole. We are one. Together, we are the Earth and the Sky, and no matter how hard they have tried, no one has ever torn the two apart."

Clarke did not bother to wipe away the tears that fell down her face, that ran over Lexa's strong, dark hand. The other woman would understand.

She was the only one who could.

The dark-haired woman walked over to the pool and slipped in, hissing as the hot water hit her naked skin, the new scratches and wounds from their recent troubles.

"Come, Clarke," she whispered.

And Clarke, helpless to anything but, followed.


	4. We are Here and Now

Clarke lay under the night sky, feelings like stardust slowly fading from her tired, tired limbs.

The ground was hard beneath her, beneath the thin leather and blanket she lay upon, and she could feel the grass tickling at the toes of her bare feet.

It was quiet but for the sound of an insect—a groundhopper, Lexa had called it—calling after its mate in the darkness, and the gentle swish of the tall weeds in the breeze. Far off toward the mountain, a night bird sung, and then an owl hooted in the distance, somwehere along the worn dirt path that led back to the camp.

The air was cool on her skin, and the blonde was tempted to roll, to turn over onto her side and into the body of the woman next to her. Tempted to seek out the other woman's warmth.

Lexa's warmth.

But she hesitated.

But she wasn't sure.

Didn't know if Lexa would shrug her off or roll away or curse her weakness.

So they'd slept together.

So they'd dragged each other away from the celebration, the lights and the songs and the joy.

So they'd slipped away into the night, both needing some quiet, some respite from the revelry.

It began slowly, two tired women watching the stars blink in the dark night sky.

An accidental touch, a mingling of hands, fingers.

And then a kiss, hard and purposeful and so, so sweet.

It didn't matter who started it, they'd finished it together. Two bodies, naked and free, limbs slowly untangling as the sky got darker and the stars even more brilliant.

And now, now Clarke felt weak.

Not before.

Not when she'd let herself touch and be touched. Not when she'd gasped into Lexa's skin or first felt the other woman's desire.

But now, silent and chilled, she feels weak.

The kind of weakness that comes from not knowing what awaited them, what paths they would find themselves walking next.

It was easier in wartime.

In wartime they would have been bodies desperate for release, eager to feel something real and alive.

But in peacetime, in peacetime the world is different.

They are different.

And this, this joining, well, Clarke has no idea what it means.

It's Lexa clarifies everything for her.

It's the Grounder who rolls, who pulls a fur over their naked bodies.

"Skygirl," she says, her voice sleepy and satisfied, "you think loud enough to wake the dead."

She throws her arm around the blonde.

"Come," Lexa says, "sleep."


	5. Pockets Full of Stones

The first thing Lexa hears is a chattering entirely unfamiliar to her. It's not the familiar low-pitched murmuring of her chieftains planning for battle. And it's not the sound of camp, or even home, with her people running to and fro outside her tent, the heavy footfalls of men mixing with the elfin patter of children chasing each other through the village.

It's something different, and under it, like the sound of birds in the branches or the crackle of a cooking fire, is something else. A pitch, a whine, almost. A new kind of sound, the kind she's begun to associate with Clarke, and her Sky People.

_Clarke_, she thinks, and a memory rises to the surface of the thick fog that weights down her thoughts. The last thing she remembers of the Sky-girl was battle—Clarke with her gun and she with her swore. _They fought well together_, Lexa thought to herself, and smiled.

Or thought she did.

Everything, every part of her body was heavy and tired, and she couldn't move for the invisible weight that was holding her down.

It reminded her of a ritual, long past. Of her choosing. Of proving herself worth of a Commander's soul. Hands and feet bound, weighed down with stones, they'd led her to the water, let her sink.

She'd struggled. And she'd fought. And eventually, she'd freed herself from the weights, the bindings, and swam up, lungs desperate for air, to break the surface once more.

Now, though, it was tempting, so tempting, to let herself slip back under, back into the darkness. Back into the water. But she couldn't. Not until she knew what happened, the outcome of the battle.

Clarke.

She couldn't let the darkness take her until she found out what had happened to Clarke.

Lexa fought the fog that sang a gentle lullaby through her blood, fought and struggled until she could open her eyes. Just the slightest. Just enough to see the harsh, false lighting of The Ark, the cold grey ceiling, the flickering of red in the corner.

_The Ark_, Lexa thought and let herself feel relieved.

They'd survived the battle.

They'd escaped the clutches of Mount Weather.

_Good_, she thought, _good_.

She tried to lick at her lips, her tongue thick and clumsy, but with no luck.

She tries to move, tries to life her arms, her leg, but to no avail.

Furious at her body, at its betrayal, Lexa struggles to speak, to command someone to give her answers, and a last, her body complies.

She moans, soft and pitiful, but it's enough.

Soon there are bodies standing over her and a gentle, cool hand at her forehead. She can't quite make out the words yet, but someone brings a cool drink of water to her lips and Lexa drinks greedily of the small sips they give her. She promises whomever it is a gift of their choosing—whatever they desire—and hope they can hear hear meaning in the garbled sounds that make it past her tongue.

Somewhere in her body there's a burning, a pain just under the heaviness that holds her in place, and she frowns, curses herself for her weakness. She should be up, she should be leading her people. Not helpless. Not this.

"Lexa," she hears, the voice soft, almost a whisper at her ear, "you have to stay still and let your body heal."

The voice is familiar, almost. Clarke's, but not Clarke's.

A shadow comes over her, and Lexa looks up.

Abby.

Clarke's mother.

The cool hand moves from her forehead to her shoulder, pressing her back against the bed.

Abby's hands are gentle as they move down her body, and Lexa feels her anxiety slipping away as the doctor examines her.

"Stitches are holding well," Abby says, "and there doesn't seem to be any internal bleeding.

The Commander focuses, hard, to form the words in her mouth, to ask the question that's sitting on the tip of her tongue.

When she finally speaks, it's rough, but she knows the doctor understands.

"Clarke," Abby responds, "she's fine. Scratches, some bruises. I finally sent her to get something to eat and then to bed a couple of hours ago. She only agreed to leave your side when I threatened to sedate her as well."

The Skygirl is well, then, Lexa thinks, and lets her eyes close again.

Now she can sleep.

Now she can let herself rest.

"When they first brought you in here," Abby continues, "she was covered in blood—kneeling over you on the litter they carried you back on, her hands the only thing keeping you alive."

_She's a strong woman_, Lexa wants to tell Clarke's mother, _brave and fierce in battle—a good warrior who will grow into a great leader_. But the words will not form.

"Hmmmm," she says instead, the sound light and airy in her ears.

"At first I thought she was injured, and I was terrified. But it was you," Abby remarks softly, a hand combing through the younger woman's hair. "She looked so lost, so young as she begged me to save you. As she told me how you'd saved her, how you stepped in front of a Reaper's sword for her."

She doesn't remember it, but Lexa knows it's true. She'd do it again, a thousand times again, to bring the Skygirl home to her people.

"I was wrong about you, Lexa," Abby says.

The words float around the Grounder woman's mind, and even though she can't make sense of them at the moment, not with the darkness calling her name, she knows they are important.

When the darkness finally takes her under, it's to the sound of Abigail humming a soft lullaby, and the sensation of a gentle kiss on her forehead.


	6. (I Know That I Am) The Luckiest

They lay together, naked and sated under the thick woven blanket of their bed.

Already the soft sky of early morning was rising, coloring the eastern wall of their tent, and the earliest risers in the Grounder camp were preparing to emerge from their beds and break the silence of the night.

"We should sleep," Clarke said in the quiet, "you know someone will come calling for us soon. Some trouble after we slipped away last night that demands your attention, or those who reveled a bit too much in the festivities asking after mine."

Lexa made a noise that Clarke, being a wise, did not laugh at, though she desperately wanted to do so. It was half-growl, half-whimper, and entirely adorable.

"They wouldn't dare," the Commander said, rolling over onto her side, resting her head on the palm of her hand. She looked at Clarke with hooded, sleepy eyes almost violet colored in the dim light. "Not this morning, no. They'll find someone else to ease their pains and handle their squabbles today. Indra, perhaps, and your mother. But they will not disturb us, not on the morning after our joining."

Clarke smiled widely.

"Oh, really," she said, her voice low and seductive, "did you order them to stay away, to leave us to our own celebration?"

The Grounder wrinkled her nose, almost imperiously.

"There was no need, Clarke of the Sky," she said, "they know better."

At that, Clarke did laugh. It was a laugh full of joy and amusement and love. The kind of laughed that warmed the hearts of all who heard it.

As it warmed Lexa's on this, the first morning of their forever.

That thought, of course, warmed more than her heart, and Lexa rolled again, this time to sit just over her mate's hips.

"Mmmmm," Clarke hummed, and grabbed at the tight muscles of the Grounder's ass. "So," she said, looking up into her wife's eyes, and smiling as Lexa's hands covered her breasts, cupped them, and she felt her nipples harden again against the darker woman's rough palm, "nobody will bother us?"

"Not if they value their life," Lexa said, leaning down to kiss at Clarke's soft lips, "and just in case they don't, I asked Octavia and Lincoln to stand guard once the sun rises."

Clarke laughed again and brought her hands up to cup her wife's face, to kiss her fiercely.

"I hope they're not too close," she said, and then, before Lexa even realized what was happening, she was on her back, a veil of blonde hair hanging down around them as her wife kissed and nipped at her lips.

If Octavia gives them a wink when they finally emerge later that evening in search of food, and Lincoln chooses to look anywhere but at them—

If Clarke giggles and Lexa glowers—

Well, no one says a thing.

Wise.


	7. Wild, Wild Horses

Clarke was on a mission. She needed to find the Commander as soon as possible in order to finalize their plans to build a series of outposts along the outer edges of the combined Grounder and Sky People territory. It was the next step in their plan to join their peoples together, to become the People of the Earth and Sky, and the outposts would become invaluable in their system of defenses against attack by the Ice People who continued to threaten them with war.

The tent was empty when she checked it, but that in itself was unsurprising. Lexa was rarely in her sleeping tent unless Clarke was in there with her. And usually, they weren't doing anything that resembled sleeping.

Still, it was a bit of a surprise. They'd made plans to see each other that night, and, according to Indra, Lexa had left the training camp hours earlier. Clarke had just assumed that her lover had gone to prepare for their evening, to wait for her.

She should have known better, of course, Clarke thinks to herself as she runs her fingers over the messy leathers and furs that make up Lexa's warm bed, the Commander waits for no one.

Not even her.

She checked the war tent next, the guard so used to seeing her enter that he didn't say a word when she lifted the flap to peer inside the dark room. The maps were there, and the new outposts plotted just where they'd discussed, but no Lexa.

She wasn't with the weaponsmith or with the dogs.

She wasn't washing by the pond or in the kitchens with her favorite cook, pretending she wasn't gathering supplies for her night with "that Star-Child," as Ursa called her.

Lexa was, to put it plainly, nowhere to be found.

Clarke wandered past people slowly returning to their huts for their night's meal, meandering back toward the path that would take her to the grouping of tents that had popped up in-between the Grounder and the Sky People's main camps. Evidence that two populations were beginning to merge, to consider themselves one people.

It was a stray thought that had her walking past the stables where the Grounders kept their prized war horses. A testament to their importance in Grounder life and culture, the magnificent beasts had one of the few semi-permanent structures for their stable. No tents of leather for these animals, no. Instead, the Grounders had cut down several large, thick trees and driven the posts into the ground every couple of feet, and attached slimmer support beams in great bix Xs between them. The walls were made of mud packed with straw, to hold in the warmth and keep out of the cold winds of winter, and the roof was thatched and then a thin layer of clay applied over to keep out the rain.

It was dark and dank and absolutely not Clarke's favorite place to be.

It was exactly where she found her Grounder queen.

Lexa stood before a large, fine warhorse, and rested her forehead against it's forelock. She was tiny next to the animal, and it could have crushed her in a single step, but the Commander was, as ever, unafraid.

She didn't hear Clarke approach, though. Didn't sense the woman's presence, so caught up in her private moment.

Clarke was close enough make out Lexa's features in the dim light of the lantern hanging in the doorway.

Close enough to hear the whisper of words as the Commander, her lover, spoke in the cool quiet of the early evening.

"… Costia's, I know Truman. I know. But she is gone, away with our ancestors, and you are too fine a creature to leave here, to leave you riderless."

The horse bobbed his head, almost as if he could understand the woman before him, understand and acknowledge and agree.

"So, it is done. You will be Clarke's mount, Truman. She is a great warrior, and you will be proud to carry her into battle."

Lexa lifts her head, her proud chin rubbing against the gentle velvet of the horse's coat.

"I know," she says as the horse gently butts his head against hers, "we loved Costia. She was good to us, gentle and caring. And she loved us. But she was never the right rider for you, she never would have ridden you into battle, triumphant and breathtaking in the midst of chaos. But Clarke, Clarke will be good for you, and Clarke will understand you."

The Grounder woman pulls back and looks into the mount's dark eyes.

"She already does. She understands that you must be strong, and that you must fight, and she will ask only that you take care of her as she takes care of you, Truman. And that is all I ask of you as well."

The woman inside falls quiet, pressing her face into the horse's head once again as he whinnies softly.

Clarke backs away slowly, now wanting to disturb her lover or the animal. This is a private moment, a beautiful moment, that she's intruded on, something she was never meant to see. And yet, she can't help but be grateful that she did.

There's a change coming, Clarke can sense it in the air. She could hear it in Lexa's soft words, the gentle tone of her voice. There's a change coming. And though she doesn't quite know what it is, or what it means, she knows that it's important. She knows that it will mean everything.

Clarke can't wait.


	8. How a Heart Stays Whole

Morning comes and goes and still Lexa sleeps.

Clarke sits by the side of her bed, waiting for the Grounder Commander to wake, to open her eyes, to say something.

Her mother has already tried to order her out of Medical at least three times today, and the last attempt was accompanied by a threat of sedation again, but still, Clarke will not listen.

She doesn't listen to anyone.

Not her mother.

Not Bellamy.

Not even Lexa's voice in her head, telling her that such sentiment has no place here on the ground.

Clarke stays.

She pulls a chair right next to the other woman's side, and sits, rising only to help change the bandage at Lexa's side and to soothe away the fever with cool water and soft cloths.

Her mother says that Lexa will be okay, that she'll soon overcome the infection and be back to threatening and scowling in no time. But Clarke won't leave her side—can't leave her side—until she sees Lexa, awake and recovering, for herself.

She owes the other woman that much.

At the very least, she owes her that much.

Lexa had saved her life. Stepped right in front of a Reaper's sword that should have landed in Clarke's belly. Instead, the Commander had leapt out and shoved her to the ground, the sword neatly piercing her side, shattering at least two ribs and sending shards of bone to penetrate blood vessels and organs, to puncture her lung.

Clarke had killed the Reaper herself, put a bullet between his eyes, and then dropped her gun to fall to Lexa's side.

The Commander's eyes had been wide but unafraid, and she'd clutched at the hands Clarke was using to examine her.

She had struggled to breathe, struggled to form the words she wanted to say, but Clarke understood anyway.

She could read them in the Grounder's soft, sky-colored eyes.

There wasn't a chance to say them back, not then. Not when she was covered in Lexa's blood and struggling to keep the other woman from bleeding out.

Not when she was fighting to keep Lexa from dying.

Now she just needs Lexa to wake up.

* * *

Someone's covered her with a blanket during the night shift.

Probably her mother. Abby may have given up on trying to get her to go back to her tent, to get some sleep, but she's still none too subtle when she wants to make a point. Right now, that includes leaving hot meals and blankets for her daughter.

It's a peace offering, of sorts, and Clarke is grateful.

She eats the food and pulls the blanket around her shoulders and waits. Watches as Lexa sleeps.

Lincoln stops by with an update on what's being done with the civilian prisoners of war they've taken, while Bellamy brings her a book from the Mountain, and she reads aloud the story of Homer and his long journey home from war.

And still Lexa sleeps.

Clarke waits until night falls and they're alone, for the most part, in this secluded corner of the medical bay. And then she brushes the hair out of Lexa's face, and whispers into her ear.

She tells her of their victory, of how the Mountain fell to the combined might of the people of the Ground and the people of the Sky. She tells her of the dead and of the living, of those wounded and those spared.

When that doesn't work, when Lexa does not stir, Clarke tells the sleeping woman of her anger. Of her rage at being betrayed. How she cursed Lexa's name as she stood, alone, looking up at the impossible fortress before her.

How, in the end, she understands. How she understands the choice that Lexa made, and how she forgives her. How her heart leapt when she heard the horn calling an advance and heard the hearty chant of the Grounder warriors as they stormed over the ridge toward the Mountain.

"Jus drein jus daun!"

How she could have wept when she saw Lexa's face, that cocky smirk, leading a charge.

She'd thought everything was lost, Clarke had. Her friends, the alliance, the war. She'd thought all her people's hopes were dashed away in a single betrayal.

But then Lexa, ever the strategian, had doubled back, her army's rage incensed, and Clarke's hope, the hopes of her people, were rekindled.

"You could have told me," Clarke whispers. But she knows it's not true. She would have given everything away. Lexa had to betray her, to lull the Mountain into believing they had won. It was the only way.

Impossibly gentle, Clarke places her hand upon the bandages covering Lexa's chest, feeling the rise and fall of it as the Grounder leader breathes.

"I'm ready for you to wake up, Lexa," she whispers, the slightest hint of a smile in her voice, "I'm ready."

Clarke touches a finger to the corner of the Grounder's lips.

"Don't make me wait too long," she prays.

* * *

On the third day, the fever breaks and Lexa wakes.

Her hair is dirty and there are still traces of war-paint in the creases of her eyes, but Clarke is certain that she's never been more beautiful. That she's never seen anyone—anything—more beautiful than Lexa and her wide blue eyes.

"Clarke," she says in a rasp, her voice low and thick with sleep and drugs, "you live."

But Clarke just lifts a glass of water up to the injured woman's lips.

"I should be angry with you," she says as Lexa slurps greedily at the cold water, "but then you go and save my life, and I can't seem to find it in me."

Lexa pushes the glass away weakly, having drunk her fill, and struggles to keep her eyes open.

"Jus drein jus daun," she says, a lazy smirk on her lips, "blood must have blood. So you'll just have to pay me back later."

Clarke can't help it, she laughs.

"Go to sleep, Heda," she says, resting her hand on Lexa's brow, "we've got time to figure it out."


	9. The Weakness in Me

It was unwise, Lexa knew it.

But she couldn't stop herself. She couldn't stay away.

Every morning, as the last stars mingled with the first rays of sunlight, unaware they were fighting a losing battle, she slipped out of her tents, away from her village, and toward the camp of the Sky People. Every morning, from her perch high up in the trees, Lexa watched as Clarke slipped out from under the fence, a small pack on her back, and snuck away toward the path that would lead her to the river.

This morning was like any other.

Lexa, hidden away in the thickly leaved branches of her tree, watching as Clarke paused just at the outer ring of trees that marked Sky People territory, and looked back, checking to make sure she hadn't been followed. She never looked up. And even if she had, Lexa would never let herself be seen.

No, Lexa kept herself well-covered as she traveled from tree to tree, following along Clarke's path. She couldn't let herself seen, couldn't let Clarke see her. Lexa knew the past hadn't been forgotten or forgiven.

Lexa knew it never would.

By the time she made it to the river, Clarke would already be there, her heavy boots tossed to the side, her bare toes curling at the feel of the grass under them.

Lexa will never forget the first time she saw Clarke do this, her yoga. How she watched the woman from the sky stretch and twist her body, how she watched the blonde's muscles tense and curl, body shaking with the effort of folding herself into such impossible positions and holding them until her muscles screamed.

It was the morning of their impending assault on Mount Weather, and Clarke had disappeared. She wasn't worried, she couldn't be worried about this girl, this woman who had fallen from the sky like a star, like a wish.

Worrying was an emotion she could not afford.

And still, when she woke and found Clarke's bed cold, Clarke's side of the tent empty, she worried.

She'd found the blonde in a quiet little corner of the camp, watched as Clarke moved from position into the next, stretching her face up to the sky with a look of such peace.

Lexa had never seen such a look before. Of absolute contentment, of unity. Of being one with the ground and the sky and everything around her.

It had been … beautiful.

It was beautiful.

She'd asked Clarke about it. What she was doing and why. The Skygirl had babbled through it, words about confinement and space and relaxation.

It was something, Clarke had said, that centered her. Something that pushed all the thoughts out of her head and her heart.

Something that let her, finally, just be.

It sounded like magic to Lexa.

Lexa, whose head never stopped thinking. Whose heart never stopped wanting.

It sounded like something she needed desperately to learn, and she made Clarke promise her that when this was all over—when Mount Weather had been taken and their people lived together in peace—she would teach her this yoga. This way of just being.

It would never happen, Lexa knew that now. Maybe she'd even known it then, in that moment.

Maybe she'd always known that she would betray the People of the Sky.

That she would betray Clarke.

It didn't matter now.

Clarke would never forgive her.

But still, Lexa could not let go. Could not let go of the one person, the one woman, who moved her, who made her want to forget that she was Heda Leksa, Commander of the Grounders.

The only person who made her want to be more.

But that would never be.

She would never be more. She'd broken that trust, she'd lost that chance.

Now all she had were mornings with Clarke and the sun. Watching from afar as the blonde woman moved and stretched in the pale sunlight.

Now, all she had was this.

Wanting.

And weakness.


	10. The River Goes (But You Stopped)

"What did you imagine for your life," Clarke asks one day as they sit on the large flat rocks beside the river, drying off in the warmth of the sunny summer day.

She looks down at the woman next to her, her naked body spread open beneath the clear blue sky. She lets her eyes trace Lexa's limbs, long and muscled, and the marks, the scars she knows so well, so intimately. The Grounder's eyes are closed against the bright midday sun, the same sun that has burned streaks of light into her long, dark hair, and her lips have lost the fierce, firm line they take in public and are curved into a gentle, gentle smile.

"Hmmm," Lexa asks, the calm quiet having lulled her into a light doze.

"The future, if we hadn't come down to the ground, if there had been no war with Mount Weather. Before everything, Lex, what did you think your future would hold?"

Clarke lays down next to her, right at Lexa's side, but doesn't roll to look at her. She knows now, after many days that were always too long and nights that were always too short, that this woman, this woman built of rock and earth and clay, this woman bred into blood and bone, has a heart like any other. A heart made of flesh, fine and delicate, and that it can be broken as easily as any.

Maybe easier.

She knows this because of all the people of the ground and sky, she is the one whom Lexa chooses to share it with.

She knows, too, that sometimes it's easier to speak from the heart when no one is watching.

And so she doesn't.

Instead, she links their hands, her tanned (but still paler) fingers mingling with the other woman's, and waits.

Instead, she listens.

"I didn't," Lexa starts. "I had no thoughts of a future," she says after a deep breath, "I desired to see my people safe, but I knew that to do so would see my life taken. Perhaps in battle with an enemy. Perhaps in a challenge from a friend. I didn't think of a future beyond aligning the Trigedakru with powerful allies, clans that could protect them from the Aisgeda. But more than that, never."

It is Lexa who turns, who rolls to her side to look into Clarke's light eyes.

"As Commander, Clarke," she says softly, "my life is about my people. They have been my future. Until now. Until you and the Skaikru fell to the ground."

The Commander watches as Clarke moves to her side.

"And you," she asks the blonde, "what did Clarke of the Sky People think her life would hold up there in the dark with the stars? Certainly not lazy afternoon baths in the river."

Clarke laughs, the sound light and airy as it floats away on the gentle breeze.

"No," she says, "certainly not. A bath would have had me floated for sure."

Lexa squeezes her hand as Clarke's breath hitches. She knows how the other woman still grieves for her father; more than once she's held the blonde in the dark night after a nightmare and kissed away the tears on Clarke's cheeks, her chin.

"I didn't have a plan, not really," Clarke continues, "but I guess I just saw myself eventually being in a relationship with Wells. We were best friends, and I knew how he felt about me. I felt something for him, maybe not as strong, not then. But I guess we probably would have dated, and then married. And then we would have had a child. I would have worked in medical, and he always spoke of teaching."

"Sounds nice," Lexa says, and she means it. It does sound nice. It sounds like a kind of life that Clarke would read to her about from some book in the small library the Ark had built. A, what had the blonde called them, happy ever after?

But Clark just sighs.

They lay together in silence for a few minutes, the sun continuing its slow journey across the sky.

It's Lexa who breaks the silence.

She needs to know.

"Do you ever miss it," she asks with a rough voice, and hopes that Clarke can't hear the vulnerability underneath.

But of course Clarke does.

Clarke's the only one who's ever heard it. And if there's one thing that convinced Lexa that it was worth it, this thing between the two of them, the looks from both peoples …

If there was ever just one thing that had convinced Lexa that it was worth it, loving this woman, loving Clarke, it's the other woman is the only person who has ever seen the cracks, the holes, the needing and longing, and not thought less of her for it. Who saw it all, Lexa in her entirety, and still believed she was whole.

"Miss what, that one possible future," Clarke asks, and runs a foot up the other woman's bare leg.

Lexa's muscles tense despite herself. "The simplicity of it," she replies, "the boy, the child, the sky?"

"No," Clarke answers as Lexa forces herself not to look away, forces herself to be strong, "it was only ever just an idea, Lex. One of an infinity of possibilities. And while there are some things I miss about the Ark sometimes, and while I miss my friend Wells, there's nothing about that future that I'd trade for the one I have right here on the ground."

Clarke rolls over onto her back, pulling Lexa with her until the taller woman is on top of her, two pairs of blue eyes lost in each other.

"Because," she says, raising her head just the slightest until Lexa's lips hover just a breath away from her own, "none of those other futures had you."

Her answer unfurls something in Lexa, something precious and warm and desperate.

"And if I had my choice," Clarke continues, "if I could pick one of all those infinite possibilities, I'd pick the one with you. Every time."

For the first time, for the first time in maybe her entire life, Lexa feels free.

The future holds an infinite number of unknowns.

But she has Clarke.

And that's enough.


	11. I Will Be Home

Smoke rose from the crater at the top of what used to be Mount Weather, the wisps of grey and white so out of place amid the otherwise deep blue of the mid-morning sky.

The battle was over.

The war had been won.

Blood had been spilled.

More would fall in the next days as those in charge identified and executed those deemed to be held responsible for the carnage, for the crimes against the Grounders and the Sky People.

But that was no longer Clarke's concern. She was no longer in charge.

She had led her people to victory. She had saved her lost friends from their certain death at the hands of the Mountainers, she had joined her people to the People of the Trees and led two armies into battle.

She had issued the order to blow the mountain, to destroy the symbol of terror and tragedy that it, once a safehaven, had become.

But now her fight was over.

Now her weapons were down.

Clarke was a general, a leader in times of war.

And this morning the sun had dawned upon a new era of peace, tentative, but promising.

Now it was time for another to take up the charge, to lead the Sky People into this new frontier.

Clarke was content to stand behind and tend to all the broken pieces left behind.

* * *

"Klok," she heard someone shout from the rubble, "Klok Kom Skaikru!"

A young grounder she didn't recognize, face smudged with blood and dirt, waved frantically for her to come over, and Clarke, exhausted, slowly made her way to the pile of bodies and rubble at the base of the mountain. It wasn't until Octavia joined the young man in calling for her that she felt any urgency, any need to hurry.

When she saw what had caught their attention, what had made them call for her, she wished she'd hurried.

She wished she'd run.

* * *

No one had seen Lexa fall.

No one had seen who struck her down.

But it was Clarke, it was Clarke who watched her die. Who watched her take her last breath, who watched her chest rise and fall one final time.

It was Clarke who whispered the words, the terrible prayer.

"Gonplei ste odon."

* * *

Toma found her, saw the red sash amid the bodies yet sorted. Amid the dying and the dead.

She was still breathing when Clarke laid a trembling hand against her neck and felt the thready pulse, the fading lifeline. She was still breathing, but the doctor's daughter knew it was only a matter of time, knew that sometimes what was broken could not be mended.

The warrior wanted to fight the inevitable, the looming shadow, the eternal darkness.

But when the last breath had been swallowed up into the air, when Lexa's body went slack and her eyes drifted closed for the final time the leader knew what had to be done—the performance and the rituals, the preservation of dignity, legacy.

When she rose, when she shook her head, it was with dry eyes.

Dry eyes and an aching heart.

Clarke forced her voice to be steady, to be strong, and called for a litter to carry the body, for a guard of the strongest warriors to bear it.

The procession, the journey to the Commander's tent, was silent but for the sound of feet marching, warriors falling into place behind their fallen leader. Clarke led the way, head held high as she struggled not to look back, as she struggled not to turn and look at the body on the bier, or those worthy enough to shoulder it. Indra, of course, and Bellamy. A Grounder she didn't recognize. Lincoln.

It was Lincoln who had almost broken her, his eyes soft and understanding as he knelt before Lexa on the battlefield. The way he'd looked at her, as if he knew everything—things even Clarke wasn't sure she was fully aware of yet.

* * *

In the tent, Clarke stood before the altar where the warriors had lain their leader down. In death, Lexa's face was almost soft, almost gentle.

A child playing at war.

A lost chance.

A tragedy.

If she cried now, if her tears mixed with the warm water as she tenderly washed away the grime of battle, the blood and the dirt and the heavy oils of warpaint, there was no one to see. If her hands trembled, if her breath stuttered, there was no one to witness.

The Grounders, solemn and reverent, had left her to prepare their leader for her final journey alone.

Clarke was grateful.

Lexa never would have forgiven her if any of their peoples saw the tears Clarke wept over her.

So, alone, Clarke stripped the torn and stained clothes from her body. Washed away the blood. Carefully stitched together the wounds, the death blow.

Alone, Clarke oiled Lexa's skin, braided sweet-smelling herbs into her hair.

Alone, Clarke painted her eyes one final time.

Alone, Clarke grieved and wept and cursed the fallen woman.

One person, one person in the world had ever understood her.

Now there was no one.

Now she was alone.

* * *

"Gonplei ste odon," Clarke said one final time over the shrouded body atop the funeral pyre. The words rippled out into the crowd, each Grounder welcoming their Commander into the afterlife, each Sky Person paying their respects.

The torch she held crackled and hissed impatiently, but she was not yet ready to say goodbye, to light the fire that would carry Lexa home.

"In peace, may you leave the shore," she whispered, "in love, may you find the next. Safe passage on your travels until our final journey to the ground."

Clarke lowered the eager torch to the kindling at the base of the pyre.

"May we meet again, Lexa," she breathed and watched the shrouded figure ignite.

* * *

In the morning, when the last tendrils of smoke curled lazily in the sky over the black scar of ash and earth, when the Trigedakru knelt before her, when they named her Heda and held out Lexa's sword, Clarke lowered her head and hardened her heart.

"Ai laik Heda Klok Kom Trigedakru," she answered, her voice strong and unwavering as she held out her hand, accepting the weapon, the title, the honor.

Her people roared.


	12. Resolved to Love

"When this is all over," Clarke said to herself, saddling her horse and preparing for the battle against Mount Weather, "I'm going to be a baker. I'm just going to sit in my hut and bake bread."

"What was that, Clarke," Lexa asked as she came up behind the blonde, lifting a hand to pull a piece of leaf from the horse's braided mane.

Clarke tried not to let it show that she'd been taken by surprise. "I said, when this is over I'm going to make bread. I'm going to put down this gun and build a hut with a big brick oven, and I'm going to make bread for Camp Jaha."

Lexa didn't say anything, just looked into Clarke's eyes.

The blonde wondered just what the other woman could see. Could Lexa see the fear, the apprehension? Could the Commander see the blood on her hands, how it made her whole body ache? The toll of each new loss? The exhaustion? The darkness, the way it had sunk into her bones, so deep Clarke couldn't remember a time anymore when she didn't feel like she was made of it?

"Just Camp Jaha," Lexa finally asked, breaking the silence.

Clarke gave the slightest shake of her head in answer.

"No," she said, more breath than word, "not just Jaha. Some days I will fill my bags with loaves and travel to the Grounder village, and I will share with the Trigedakru."

She took a step toward the taller woman with the piercing green eyes.

"And some days—," Clarke whispered, "one day—I will bring you the best of my loaves, fit only for the Heda."

Lexa took a deep breath, her eyes closed as she felt the warmth of Clarke's body so close to her own.

"Well," she answered once she'd brought her trembling hands under control once more, "on the days you bring many loaves, I will order the cooks to prepare a grand feast, and we will celebrate the union of our peoples, our great victories."

She looked down at the woman from the sky as she continued, "But on the days you only bring one, I will ask the cooks to prepare a meal just for the two of us. And we will celebrate our union, our victory."

The Grounder felt the shudder that ran through the blonde's body, even with the space between them, and they stood like that for a moment. Almost touching. Careful breaths. Silent.

Until with a shout from outside and the whinny of the horse behind them, the world resumed its spinning once again.

Nodding, Clarke pulled back.

"When you're ready," Lexa informed Clarke, remembering why she came after the blonde in the first place, "we will ride."

Outside, in the early morning light, an army waits for them, waits to be led into battle. Each man and woman knows that they may not return. Each is prepared to be led to death by these women, their leaders.

"I'm ready," Clarke answered, as true as it could be. She would never be ready to take lives, to deal in blood and death. But the moment always seemed to come despite it. She led her horse out of the stable and mounted him while Lexa readied her own, an sight to behold in his warpaint and armor.

"May you honor your ancestors," Lexa called as she settled into the leather saddle, and then she turned to make her way to the front line.

"Lexa," Clarke called after the brunette, not wanting to part without saying something, not sure what to say.

But when she saw those eyes again, the understanding in them, she knew.

"In one of the old Earth languages," she said, "the word for bread and the word for life come from the same root. I've always—"

Clarke stumbled over her words for a moment.

"—I've always thought that was beautiful," she finished, and hoped Lexa had heard her. Heard beyond her words.

The Commander, her dark, painted eyes lending wait, nodded slowly.

"Come, Clarke," she said, her words soft, "let us free our people. And after, we will sit and talk of bread and life and beautiful things."


	13. The Sky that Holds the Clouds

Clarke is gone.

You woke in the infirmary, Marcus at your side, gasping your daughter's name, but she never came.

First they lied to you and told you she was here, but they didn't know where.

Then they lied to you and told you they knew where she was, but it wasn't here.

When darkness falls, Bellamy comes to your bed and tells you everything.

* * *

She was a sweet child always, but stubborn. You used to tease her father about that, that she got her stubborn streak from him.

It wasn't true.

Her earnestness, her sense of justice, her heart. These were the things you loved most in her father. Her stubbornness, what you've always hated most in yourself.

* * *

At night you toss and turn, wondering at what point she started paying for your sins. Wondering when she stopped being your daughter, the little girl who climbed into your arms every morning, how she'd ask you to sing her another song, then two, then three, counting her wishes on her tiny chubby fingers.

At night you wonder when she stopped being a child, when she became a sacrifice.

* * *

The Commander requests your presence at a treaty negotiation.

You would say no, but there's the tiniest sliver of hope that Clarke will be there. That you'll see your daughter again, some place outside your memories and nightmares.

You realize when you arrive and see the dull flickering in the young leader's eyes, Lexa was hoping the same thing.

And there's something about that that comforts you. Not to see the other woman's disappointment, her pain, no. But the knowledge that someone else thinks of your daughter, someone else still whispers her name.

It's been so long now, some days you wonder if Clarke was only ever a dream, a fever in your brain that conjured the memory of loving someone.

Lexa is proof that your daughter is real.

That someone else still waits for her to come home.

* * *

Some days you can't quite remember the sound of her voice, the color of her eyes.

Some days the sky reminds you, some days every voice is hers, calling your name.

Once you went out into the woods, started along the long path to where you last saw her, held her, wiped her tears. But the birds called each other and you swore you could hear her name in the wind.

Marcus found you, weeping on the riverbank, and led you home.

She'll come back, he promises.

He always underestimated her.

* * *

There are children in the camp now, homes. There are fields to plant and plow, and herds to keep.

No one looks to you to lead anymore. No one much looks to you for anything.

Most days you spend in your little garden.

Most nights you spend in the room you keep for her.

Marcus stops by, tells you of the unions, the births. Tells you of the party they had for the third birthday of the first child born in camp. The little boy who carries your daughter's name.

Lexa, now and then, coming to sit with you in silence as the sun drops below the horizon.

Mostly, though, you're alone.

It's a fitting punishment.

* * *

Lexa comes for you in the night, silent as ever.

You ride for hours, and then days.

You cross rivers and mountains.

You sleep under trees with only the light from the moon and stars to remind you that you're still alive.

Lexa doesn't say a word.

At dusk on the fifth day, she holds up her hand and slips off her horse.

Slowly, carefully, you pick your way through the underbrush until you're standing in a clearing.

There, in the distance, is a small hut, light from its windows spilling out onto the ground outside.

And in the dark, silent night, you can hear the melody of a half-remembered song, coming from within.

* * *

Three days you watch, drink your fill of your daughter. For three days you watch her, from the first moment she rises until the last moment before she closes her door in the evening, and light from her candles seeps into the darkness.

Clarke is alive, your heart beats, and for the first time in years the pulse of your blood in your veins doesn't feel like a crime.

Her hair is impossibly long, and tied back in complicated braids. You think back to her childhood, and how little patience she had for sitting still.

Her face is older now, dark with hours spent in the sun and air. There is a limp you don't remember, and the songs she sings in the evening take a heavy, heavy tone.

But she's still your daughter, still Clarke. Still the beautiful child you brought into this life. You were the first person she ever saw, you think, and remember watching as she opened her cloudy blue eyes for the first time.

On the eve of the third day, when the sun dips below the horizon, her door stays open.


	14. The Only Thing That's Real

**A 5-Sentence Fic**

_Prompt_: orange

* * *

After, she rises from the bed and retrieves a something from across the room; something small and round and a shade of orange that the hydroponics bay on the Ark could never quite match. She presents it to you—your Commander, your Heda, your Lexa—without a word, silent and with a shy blush that contrasts sharply with her naked body, the body your hands just spent an eternity learning from the inside out. The rind is thick and oily as you break into it, and the scent of it, Earth, but it clings to the air, wakes every muscle and nerve your lover has so intimately exhausted. When you bite into the flesh, the little piece that Lexa holds up to your lips, the juice, tart and sweet and alive, drips down your chin, down onto your bare legs, onto the tangle of furs that make up her bed. You share the fruit with her, wanting to always remember this moment, to burn the scent of it, and her, into your memory, and when the fruit is gone, the rind in pieces scattered around you, you kiss the taste of it off her lips before she kisses it off your body.


	15. Nothing's Ever Built to Last

**A 5-Sentence Fic**

_Prompt_: ruins of the old world

* * *

You know the stories, they're all your people had of religion up in the heavens. They'd saved what they could, they'd saved who they could—the things they'd deemed worth saving, the most important, the most valuable. But standing here, in the jungle of rubble and ruin, you realize just how much they always left out, who they always left behind. This new world you're building, your peoples together as one, you're building it upon a foundation of bone and blood. And tears, you think, as yours fall to mingle with the dust—bone or stone, you'll never know—and Lexa grabs your hand, steadies you against the weight of all that was left behind.


	16. Darling, Did I?

**A 5-Sentence Fic**

_Prompt_: "what do you mean your people shave their legs?"

* * *

You look at Clarke like she's grown another head, "You want to do what with what?"

"I want to shave my legs," she answers, and still, even though you know the words she's saying, you don't understand.

"You know," Clarke continues, "shave … my legs, remove the hair, make them smooth?"

It sounds like the craziest thing you've ever heard, and coming from a woman who grew up among the stars, you thought the bar for her crazy was already set pretty high. Still, though, you hand her your knife—should be interesting enough to watch, at the very least.


	17. Clarke of the Broken

Her mother finds her and tries to bring her home.

"We're your people," Abby says, like she expects it to mean something, like she expects the reminder to be the thing that makes everything okay, that soothes the wound that is Clarke's soul.

How wrong her mother is, how terrifyingly little she understands.

"My people," Clarke says and tries not to turn her words to swords, "are those who were sent down with me to die. My people are those who bled and fought and survived with me. Those people," she says, and almost spits, "those people have no idea of the price we've paid for their freedom, for their breath of fresh Earth air."

She wants to laugh. They'd all learned about the economics of earth cultures in the past, how the divide was always sharper tomorrow than today. Earth, it turns out, is no less costly now.

Only the medium of exchange has changed, only the currency.

Now they pay in blood and bodies.

Now they pay in souls.

"Clarke," her mother says, the words clouded by everything that stands between them.

It's best this way, that she become Clarke, just Clarke. No sky to carry her or earth to ground her.

Clarke of the dead, Clarke of the ghosts.

Clarke of blood and bone and breaking.

Clarke, broken.

When Abby turns to leave there's only the smallest part of her that regrets it, that aches to see her mother go.

She buries it in her flesh, another hash to mark the spot.

She doesn't look back.

Neither of them do.


	18. A Warmer Season

She doesn't return to the mountain.

And maybe that makes her a coward. And maybe that makes her a monster.

But she can't. The mountain holds nothing for her–there's no forgiveness for what she's done, no absolution, no hope.

She was a sacrifice from her first breath, the mountain just the latest hash on her long list of sins. Making peace with what she's done won't ease her burden, won't settle her debts to the whomever's keeping score.

She doesn't return and she doesn't look back.

There's only one way for her now.

Away.

Men from the Woods clan come with axes and torches, and the leader of the Sky clan, weak with loss and not-yet recovered, shakes in fear before them.

But they come in fraternity, not anger. And they bring support, not war.

Together, the two clans clear the mountain of its dead. The men sent by their Heda and those of the sky strong enough and brave enough to help. Bellamy, and Wick, Lincoln and Octavia. Kane, Monty, a few others who volunteer.

They carry the bodies up, up into the sunlight, into the cool winter air. The soldiers, the guards, the doctors they burn on large biers, let their sins and their trespasses whisper off into the sky.

The innocent, though, they bury in a little grove on the very top. Where their spirits can watch as the sun rises and sets, can feel the rain and snow and wind, surrounded by wild flowers in spring and tall grasses in summer. Bellamy marks each final resting place with a stone, and offers a promise to watch over them, to tend their spirits with care.

It's Wick and Lincoln who lay the charges, Octavia who runs the fuse.

The only protest comes from Kane who speaks about what they might find inside, what they might be able to use, to save.

In the end, though, the fuses are lit, and the members of both clans take shelter behind the same large rocks. And then there is a great rumbling, and the ground trembles beneath their feet.

The mountain is no more, its treasures and its sins sealed away forever, returned to the earth from whence all things came.

When they return to Camp Jaha, the silent Grounders continuing on to their own village, it is Bellamy who explains what they've done to the Chancellor. How they had decided to destroy so many of humanity's great wonders, the tools and medicines, the supplies and the weapons.

"It was," he tells her, "what Clarke would have done."

"But it was our past, our history," Abby whispers, uncomprehending.

"Now we can start over," is his only answer.

The cold season seems to stretch on forever, and Lexa struggles to stay calm. There are too many hours in the day and too little to occupy her mind. To distract her.

If this were the rainy season, or the hot, she'd be training her warriors, maybe leading them into battle. And her head would be full of strategy and tactics, plans for defense, careful navigating of delicate alliances.

If it were any other season, her mind would not have the time, the energy to betray her.

But it is cold, and the nights are long, and Lexa spends far too much time thinking about the woman she betrayed. In every dream she walks away.

In only a few does Clarke ever survive.

Sometimes it's the Mountain, the soldiers with their weapons and their empty eyes. Sometimes it's at the hands of people Lexa once called her own, those stolen away and transformed by the Mountain men.

Sometimes it's an animal, sometimes one of the People of the Sky.

But the worst–the worst are the dreams where Lexa can feel the warm blood dripping down her own wrist, down into the dirt as she walks away from the only two promises she's ever broken.

She has her short daggers melted down after the third night waking with a precious name on her lips and angry, mournful tears in her eyes.

It doesn't help her sleep, but it makes her feel better.

The birds are out.

She's survived. She made it through the long winter, the quiet months as the earth calls its children back home, readies itself for another cycle.

The birds are out, the trees are budding, the earth is warming itself in the longer spring days, and Clarke is ready to try again.

To start anew.

They run into each other as they make their ways back home. Lexa to Ton DC, to see how her people have fared in her absence, and Clarke to Camp Jaha, ready, at long last, to face the people for whom she bears her burden.

And it could have been violent.

It could have been angry.

But instead, it was simple. And it was silent.

Almost like starting over.

Almost like forgiveness.

Almost like moving on.


	19. Bound for the Blessing

To the naked eye, you return much the same way you left.

Older. Thinner. Clothes more worn and hair that, if down, would fall past the middle of your back.

But this time, your people aren't battle-weary and broken.

And this time, your eyes don't burn with ash and regret.

It's been three years, maybe more. You lost track of the days that first year as you stumbled through the forest. As you slipped past the villages and towns. As you struggled to survive alone, truly, for the first time in your life.

Being alone, though, suited you. It healed you.

It knit together the most broken parts of you, the deep wounds you cut into your own soul, the betrayal of everything you ever believed about yourself.

And when Lexa's scouts stumbled upon you, shivering and weak in the aftermath of an early autumn blizzard, that second winter, months of solitude and silence made you ready to hear her voice again, to stand before her and not quake in equal parts anger and fear.

The truce you built was a tentative, precious thing. It began with the smallest of courtesies. It began with the slightest of trembles in Lexa's voice as the Commander of the 12 Tribes rose from her throne at the sight of you kneeling before her. The way your name sounded on her lips. Green eyes that softened, almost imperceptibly, when you met the gaze you'd spent months dreaming of in the cold, dark woods.

She'd offered to take you home, to your people.

And you'd said no.

You were healing.

But you were not whole.

Not yet.

Instead, you stayed.

You stayed with Lexa, in her tribe.

In her camp.

In her home.

And, yes, eventually in her bed.

In the woods, you'd learned how to survive on your own, how to be self-sufficient and take care of yourself.

But Lexa, Lexa taught you to be loved. How to accept it, how to give it. Lexa taught you that you were worthy, that despite all the marks you carry around, the tally of lives you weigh against your own, you still deserved to love and to be loved.

And slowly, slowly, you did.

Yourself, first.

And then her.

Her soft skin against you as the morning breaks and the birds sing their waking song. The wordless way you somehow seem to always end up with the best parts of everything–the thickest slab of meat, the warmest jumper, the fastest horse.

The way you want to be gentle with her, the way you want to be fierce. How you want her to have every part of you, the good and the bad, and you ask–no, you demand–the same of her.

With Lexa you learned that giving is as powerful as taking. As beautiful. As good.

Together you learned that sometimes weakness is a strength. That love is the strongest weakness of them all.

And then one day, you were ready.

One day, you woke. And you felt whole.

And that's when you knew.

It was time to return.

Now, when you see the gates in the distance, the settlement that Camp Jaha has become in your absence, you feel a fluttering in your chest that might be excitement, that might be joy.

And maybe you kick your heels a little harder into the sides of your horse, spurring him on. Maybe you turn to the woman riding at your side and give her an easy smile.

She's afraid, you know. She's been afraid since you first told her of your decision.

She shouldn't be.

The reason you can come back to this place? Where you gave and lost so much?

The reason you knew you were ready to return?

Because you woke up that morning to the birds singing and the sound of her breath in your ear as she slept, belly-down and sprawled over the fur-covered bed, limbs out to conquer every corner, and at once, in a single startling moment, you knew.

The only home you need is her.


	20. Death Upon the Vine

Morning breaks over the trees in the east and brings with it a new day.

The third long night since the mountain is over, but still, you have not slept.

How could you.

When every time you close your eyes you see Clarke's face, the hurt and the disbelief there?

You'd thought you were past feeling anything, you thought you'd burned love and want and desire out of you when you watched Costia's body turn to ash. You hadn't expected to be proven wrong. You hadn't expected to feel your heart roar back into life at the sight of the girl who fell from the sky like a star on fire.

You hadn't expected to want her, to want to want her. To see her in your dreams and in the dark behind your eyes; to feel the thought of her warm your breast, your belly.

And just when you'd allowed yourself to kindle the tiniest spark of hope within your heart, the world came crashing down around you, reminded you that there is no room for tenderness, for love, in the life of the Heda.

You were born to lead your people. Born to live and die for them.

The prophecies never said anything about love, about happiness, about joy.

"Heda," Indra says from the dark trees behind you, "you should sleep. There is still much to do."

She's right, you should try to rest, to recover. A leader must be strong, must not falter, and peace is only ever a temporary promise. There are always new enemies waiting to replace the old.

"I will not, Indra," you answer her, and you make your voice heavy and cold. You are the commander, heda. Your word is law.

"Commander," she tries again, and you can hear the discomfort in her voice. So solid, Indra is. So unmoving. She would have made a good commander, you think. "Commander, the scouts have returned with news. The Skaikru have defeated the Mountain Men. You must rest so that we may properly celebrate our victory."

It's the final word that does it, that cuts open the darkness inside of you, and when you speak, you measure your words against the weight of her name. Because even if she has survived, and even now your heart plays betrayer, she must be dead to you.

"Victory, Indra," you say as you turn to look at the her, taking in the way the first rays of the morning sun sink into the valleys the tests of time have cut into her face. "There was no victory at the Mountain. We may have won the battle, but we did so by betraying those who won the war."

You betrayed Clarke knowing that she would lose, knowing that there was no other way for you both to win and to survive. You betrayed her because you would have betrayed anyone-anyone-if it meant the survival of your people. And in a way, you did. You betrayed your heart, the smallest parts of you that still answer to your name, not your title.

But betraying Clarke only meant anything if she lost, if she was lost.

You should have known she wouldn't.

You should have recognized the fire in her veins, the ice in her eyes.

You may have won the battle, made your enemy your friend, but you made of your friend an enemy, betrayed them-her-and left them with little more than a prayer for their deaths to be merciful, to be quick.

No, there is no victory today, you think and begin your walk back to the heart of the village. There are no reasons to celebrate.

Now all there is to do is wait.

Clarke will come for you, for your people, take what she's owed in bodies, in spoils.

Take you as sacrifice, as symbol.

You've half a mind to let her.

"Come Indra," you call, "there is work to be done."


End file.
